How to Find Places to Submit Your Work

Every author who has something to say needs a proper venue to say it. When I first started writing with the intention to publish, the only places I knew of were Cemetery Dance and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Since I’m not really a sci-fi writer I went with CD and after a grueling, 9 month process, finally got a generic rejection letter in the mail.

What could I have done differently? Had I known at the time about websites like Duotrope I would have found many more horror publishers, many of which allow dual submissions (Cemetery Dance at the time did not). But after finding the site several years later, I actually was able to locate many publishers, on-line and in-print, who eventually published my work, including the now defunct Alien Skin Magazine that actually took the care to tell me exactly what was wrong with a submission so I could correct it and resubmit. It’s also the site I used to find the publisher for The Ghost Toucher.

But now Duotrope has turned into a pay site and if you’re a newbie author like I was, it could be discouraging to have to pay for something you want to eventually make money from. But don’t fret, there are still plenty of places you can look up that provide the same service as Duotrope for free. I didn’t look these up myself, just passing along info I found through a quick Google search. If you’re where I was 10+ years ago, by all means make use of that link. Oh, and happy Memorial Day!

Don’t forget: How to Publish on Kindle, Smashwords, & Nook the Easy Way! will be out this Tuesday. Join the FB page to make sure you don’t miss out on the updates.